


The Mythology of Headstones

by soitgoes



Category: American Horror Story
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-31
Updated: 2012-09-09
Packaged: 2017-11-11 02:58:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/473742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soitgoes/pseuds/soitgoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the end we all fade into fairytales and ghost stories. not AU with a little bit of Tate/OC and Tate/Violet. Mostly just a bucket of angst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Slab of Concrete

A headstone sits amongst a garden of marble statues and limestone memorials, tributes to the dead. It reads:

_Angela_

_1977-1992_

There's no last name only  _Angela_  carved in thick straight letters. The monument is cheap cement and in a few decades the letters and numbers will be so faded that you won't even be able to make out a name. There will just be a smooth gray expanse where  _Angela_ used to be. And those letters and numbers tell you no tales, no romanticized version of a story that was so small and insignificant that after it's implosion it managed to leave behind only this small, lonely slab of concrete as a marker of one little dead girl in a field of the deceased.

This slab of concrete only tells you the cold hard facts. Angela is dead.

* * *


	2. Angela

_June - 1991_

The smell of slaughtered grass was in the air, fresh and green. The tops of the wooden fence were digging into the middle of her feet leaving rectangular impressions in the thick dirty skin of her soles. Her calf muscles strained to keep her in balance as she listened closely to the air around her.

_Ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum._

That's her heartbeat, the first song she ever heard. The first rhythm she has ever known.

_Ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum_

But there's something else, something beneath the ground at 1120 Westerchester Pl, Los Angeles. Like somebody crying. She's trying to listen but the sound track of her own blood being pumped through her vessels and veins is too loud against the inside of her ear drum. Rushing and running so loud it was blocking out that song, that humming coming from beneath that  _house_. She's trying so hard and then…

_"What the fuck are you doing?"_

The record skips.

The next thing she knew, Angela was face down in the grass with nose bleeding into the dirt.

\-------------------------

He's angry. Of course he was angry. Tate was always angry. And not just angry but so very  _frustrated_. He didn't understand how he could be so damn angry and still be alive. How could he be so full of poison and still manage to breathe?

"What the fuck are you  _doing_?" Tate said; he was even angrier now.

Angela raised her body from the ground the palms of her hands pressing into the soft moist earth. She lifted her face to the older boy who was staring down at her his gold hair reflecting the sunlight, his face obscured by shadows. She smiled. The blood from her nose ran down her face, over her lips and into her teeth.

"I said what the  _hell_  – "

He started but he doesn't get to finish because the crazy girl was up and at him in half a second.

"Shhhhhhhhh," she hushed him low and soft, pushing her finger against his lips.

Her fingers smelt like honey and polishing oil.

"Be quiet," she said so soft and serious that he forgot to be angry, "I can almost hear it."

His face suddenly contorted as he realized she had absolutely no right to shush him. He smacked her hand away from his mouth and pushed Angela down. She fell on her back and stayed there. It was so much easier to hear the music from down there on the ground with the grass pressing into her back and the sunshine pushing her into the dirt.

"That house is singing," she said from her place on the ground, "can you hear it? It's singing."

"Singing?" he said no longer angry just curious, his mood swings could be brutal.

"Mmhm," Angela hummed then beckoned to him with the wave of her arm, "com'ere. You can hear it."

Tate tilted his head to the side his curly hair brushing his shoulder. He crouched down besides her balancing on the balls of his feet. He turned his ear to the ground and listened intently but he heard nothing.

"I don't hear anything," he said his eyebrows clashing together in frustration.

Angela rolled her eyes from behind her lids.

"Of course you can't hear it from up there," she said exasperated, "get down here."

She grabbed Tate by the elbow and pulled him down. The action was so sudden that Tate had no time to react. He fell forward into a heap besides Angela with his face pressed against the grass, his ear full of it. Still no music.

"I can't hear it," he said his irritation building.

"You gotta listen," she mumbled her voice breathy and soft almost cooing.

She was falling asleep.

"I can't – "

" _TATE!_ " Constance Langdon shouted as she made her way out of to her son who was lying on the ground next to some crazy looking shrew of a girl.

"What in the  _hell_  do you think you're doin'," she said as she reached down to pull, "what if someone saw you out here looking half crazed sitting on the ground like some kind of, some kind of –"

"Invalid?" Tate shouted lifting his back off the ground to rest his weight on his elbows.

Tate glared at his mother a look of betrayal and loathing. He hated his mother. She was a cocksucker; literally she sucked cock.

"That's not what I said," Constance replied her cheeks flushing. That damned child always knew how to really rally her up.

"But it's what you meant."

Mother and son continued to bicker and argue but Angela couldn't be bothered. She could  _hear_  it. The house was singing to her. A chorus of soft hums and coos like baby speak then the sound of violins, weak and spindly at first but then a rush of clarity. Everything clashes together. It was a cry, a lament.

"How beautiful," Angela whispered.

"Excuse me," Constance said her southern drawl becoming more evident as her vexation grew, "but who the hell are you and why are you on  _my_ property."

The record skipped and the music stopped. Angela's eyes snapped open to look up at the blonde hair woman leaning over her with her hands on her hips. Her hair was bright and yellow much like her son's but the light had caught her face making her features visible to Angela.

"You're his mother," she stated.

It wasn't a question just an astute observation. Constance, in her tight floral printed dress and high heels that made little holes in the soft dirt when she walked, was taken aback by the statement but grateful for the recognition. Tate was by far the most physically beautiful of her children and she appreciated it when people took notice that it was she who created that beautiful example of physical perfection. It was she who had gifted him to the world.

"Why, yes I am," she said sweetly the way opium is sweet, the way poison is sweet, "now who are you and what the  _hell_  are you doing on my property?"

Constance, like her name was ever vigil. You could knock her down, once, twice, a million times but she would come back. She would come back and stick a knife into your spine and twist. She was the kind of woman that exuded a strange sort of elegance that made men falter and women wilt. Constance was the kind of woman to intimidate but Angela was the kind of kid that couldn't tell the difference between hostile and hospitable. Angela was the worst kind of oblivious.

So Angela just smiled with spots of blood still on her pearly whites, a trail of red still on her chin. Bits and pieces of slaughtered grass weaved into the tangled mop on her head. She held out her hand covered in dirt, honey and polishing oil and said,

"I'm Angela."


	3. Good Enough

Constance grimaced at the small dirty hand stretched out towards her. The girl actually expected Constance to touch that pale dirty appendage. The filthy child, Angela, was a pretty little thing despite being a chink. Her hair was dark, though not quite black and after a good wash and comb it would be straight and smooth. Though her face was still round with a bit of lingering baby fat Constance could make out high cheek bones, evidence of her Chinese heritage, that would one day give her face a shape that trophy wives across America pay millions for. The lucky bitch.

"Well  _Angela_ ," Constance said still not taking the girl's hand, "I'm Constance and this is my house and I don't appreciate trespassers on my property."

"Oh for sure," Angela replied without missing a beat, "I don't think anyone likes trespassers _ma'am_."

Constance knew that tone. She practically invented that snide polite quirk of the mouth paired with those impeccable manners. The cheeky runt.

"Well then you'll understand just fine why I want you to get your saucy self  _off_  of my lawn!"

Now as stated before Angela was oblivious but she wasn't that thick. She knew a threat when she saw one. And that blonde lady with her insides all curled up like a snake ready to spring was one heck of a threat.

"Oh for sure, _ma'am_ ," Angela giggled knowing that she had upset the older woman by the bright flush across poor Constance's cheeks.

"Why you little –" Constance's hands reached out to grab the teenager but those heels turned out to be her down fall as they stuck into the soft summer soil of her back yard and caused her to loose her balance.

By the time Constance got her balance back, Angela was turning round the corner her bare feet slapping the pavement and her laughter echoing down the street.

* * *

_Some Sunday Afternoon_

There were many things that Tate hated. He hated the kids at school, all of them. He hated his mother with her murderous perfume and floral prints. He hated daytime TV and men who drove expensive cars and rode expensive hookers. He hated the way the mud smelled after rain, and he hated how muggy L.A. could get. Tate hated a lot of things.

"I hate Coke," Tate said down to the girl who sat contentedly in the shade of a low tree.

Angela had her back against the fence that separated her from the yard of that dreadfully pleasant woman Constance. A box juice, apple, sat in her lap and a warm Coke was in her left hand. She had been humming something by Schubert when she was startled by Tate's confession.

"Oh," was the only sound she could muster at first and then she said, "it's brown, I like brown."

Tate seemed to be satisfied with the answer. He seemed to take it in as he ducked his head down his lips moving to form the words Angela just spoke but he made no sound. Then he jumped up off the wooden step stool that his mother had told him not to touch. He pushed his palms into the top of the fence propelling him up and over the wood boards.

"Oh!" Angela said.

It was a quiet exclamation of surprise as the fourteen year old landed besides her effectively knocking her shoulders so that she dropped her offensive beverage. The red can hit the ground and vomited up all of its contents into the grass.

"That was dramatic," Angela said as Tate composed himself in the grass besides her, "I liked it though."

"Yea?" Tate replied as he dusted some grass from his pants.

A lackadaisical grin spread across his face, sweet and almost silly as Angela answered "yea."

Then she reached into her navy rucksack and offered him a box of apple juice.

"I really like guava juice," Angela said, as he took the box from her hand, "but they don't make those in boxes. Apple is nice too though."

They sat in companionable silence for a while in the shade enjoying apple juice and the company. Angela started to hum as she stared at Tate's childhood home. He didn't know it yet but that song she was humming was sound that came up from the floorboards of that place. It was the melody of all those babies that couldn't even die because they were never alive. It was the sound of Nora sobbing into her empty cradle where a baby should be. Angela was singing the song of all those people who could never leave.

It was funny how she could hum that song and still look so happy, so content. And she  _was_  happy, she was content to just sit there with the blond boy and enjoy the summer while it lasted but something ugly twisted and coiled in Tate. She was  _too_  happy. She was too content and something cruel and feral wanted to see how far that could stretch. How much could she bend before she broke.

"You wanna know a secret," Tate said looking intently at Angela's face gauging her reaction, "that house is full of dead people."

He waited for the fear, the repulsion. He wanted to hear her deny it, or maybe tell him he was crazy. He wanted to scare her, or hurt her. He wanted to hate her too. He just needed a reason, one dirty look but her eyes never left the house.

"Logically speaking, the whole world is full of dead people," she said, "they're in the air, in the dirt, in your cells and in mine. It's naive to think we could ever really escape them."

She didn't get what he was saying. She was being poetic and philosophical. Tate was being literal because that house was actually full of dead people. People who couldn't move on, people with malicious intents and vendettas but she didn't call him crazy. And that was good enough.

For now.


	4. Scared

"Are you scared?" Tate asked suddenly as he sat at the base of a large ash tree.

From above him Angela called back, "What, of falling?"

"No, I mean if that's what you're afraid of then yes," Tate said as he ripped a still-green leaf in half then again and again, "but I don't think it is so no. I mean, like, what are you afraid of in life?"

"Well I'm afraid of birds I guess," Angela called down from her spot in the tree.

"Birds?" Tate said as he squinted up through the branches hoping to catch sight of her but the sun blinded him and returned his gaze to the leaf.

Now the tree was very old and very large. It had been around for over a hundred years. Neither Angela nor Tate was aware of that fact. All they saw was a big tree. Angela decided to climb it while Tate decided to stay on the ground.

"Are you sure you don't wanna come up," Angela called down to her blond companion, "it's really nice."

Tate was content where he was, however. He would not climb the tree, his worn down sneakers would have made his feet clumsy. His long jean pants were too constricting. He did not want to climb a tree, climbing trees wasn't what he did but he couldn't shake the feeling of missing her. He wished she would come back down and just sit with him down on the ground.

"Angela," Tate moaned from his seated position folding his legs up, crissing and crossing them one over the other, "are you done yet? Come back down already."

She had only been up there for 10 minutes but Tate was already aggravated by her absence. That was his problem you know? He could get so attached and over the past month Tate had grown used to Angela's constant presence.

As for Angela she had grown quite attached to the blond youth as well. He was strange, and she supposed sad as well but he was nice company. His topics of conversation were almost always thought provoking and he liked being with her. She could never understand why but no one ever really liked being with her until Tate.

Angela didn't know it yet but she was slowly building an addiction.

"I don't want to come down," she said not really caring if he could hear her, "the breeze is too nice and so is the view, it's a typical tree ya know? It's great."

Tate did hear her for the most part. He heard enough to understand she wasn't coming down. So he set to brooding. His dark half-lidded eyes glared at the mutilated leaf in his hand. He thought of ways to punish her for leaving him there all by his lonesome. Then curiosity interrupted his musings.

"Birds?" Tate called suddenly inquiring again about Angela's fears.

Then there was the sound of cracking. A snap as leaves rained around him. Tate wasn't even surprised when Angela landed on her butt besides him with a small yelp. She hadn't broken anything though her tailbone was probably bruised but Tate got what he wanted. Means to an end.

"Yea," Angela said, rubbing her bum gingerly, "birds creep me out. Haven't you seen the movie?"

And that started them on the topic of favorite horror films and then just films in general.

"At what point is a movie no longer just a movie?" Angela asked in the middle of their conversation, "like when does a movie, a plain old, regular movie graduated to "Film" status?"

Then that became a whole new conversation, a new debate that they could waste their time on. That's what those two teenagers did together. They wasted time. They wasted all the time they had.

"So you're telling me that you don't think that Batman was a great film?" Tate said giving her a disbelieving look.

"No well," she said mulling over the thought, "I've never actually seen it."

This was an even bigger offense in Tate's eyes. It was one thing to have a shitty opinion but to have an uneducated shitty opinion was just unacceptable.

"How have you not seen Batman?" Tate said still in disbelief.

"I dunno," Angela replied shrugging her shoulders then shivering a bit, the air was getting cooler, "I don't really watch current films only what my grandmother keeps around and she's ancient. I like them though."

Angela liked a lot of things and she found that she hated very little. A strange paradox those two created because Tate hated many things and found that he liked very little. He liked Angela though. After her confession of ignorance the two teens lapsed into soft silence.

"Hey Tate," Angela said after a few minutes, "what happens when the summer ends and we have to go back to school. We won't see each other much anymore seeing as we don't go to the same school."

Tate hadn't really thought about it. He didn't like to mull over what the new school year would bring. He'd be going to a new school since Westfield still refused to let him back but it still be the same place just with different assholes. High school was a joke but it would be a nightmare without Angela there. He'd be lonely without her. Tate hated being lonely it was a sentiment that he and Angela shared.

"It's nothing to worry about, Ang," Tate said softly; he felt her lean into him.

He could smell her hair, which was a dark musky scent like incense and cinnamon. She smelled so warm, so welcoming. Her breath was apple vapor from all the juice boxes she downed on a daily basis. She also smelt vaguely of dirt and sweat from all the running around and falling she did and her hands. He could never forget the smell of her hands, it seemed no matter how many trees she climb or beaches she roamed her hands always managed to smell of honey and polishing oil.

He could feel her humming; he couldn't hear her the sounds she made were too soft. He could feel the song rumble through her. She was always humming that tune, dark and wistful. He'd have to ask her one-day what it was called. School was nothing to worry about. Tate could handle high school without Angela. They'd both be fine. They had to be.

 


	5. Lies

Angela twirled and hummed with almost childish satisfaction. Her long dark pleated skirt fluttered around her as she turned. Her actions were so silly and innocent, things that Tate rarely ever was. He felt jealous of her but then she turned to him her eyes ablaze with excitement a question.

"Whatcha think?" Angela breathed as she did another twirl.

Tate smiled at her ways. It was her second day of school. He hadn't been able to see her off on the first day. His mother had managed to keep him away but he got to see her off on the second day. Angela seemed completely fine either way.

"It's a bit," he began a look of thought on his face, "well stupid really."

A grin broke out across his features, the muscles in his face contracted causing his lips to stretch and his teeth to show. Her uniform was kind of ridiculous, in that it was so typical.

The pleated skirt was long and fell just above her knees. The band of it wrapped around the place right about her hips. A white collared shirt was buttoned up all the way to the base of her neck and just below the collar was a navy blue crosstie. A tasteful blazer the same color as her skirt and tie was draped around her. It looked just the slighted bit to big on her thin form.

"What?" Angela said the dragging out the vowel her eye brows jamming together, "I like it."

"Well then that's that," Tate said finally taking his eyes off of her and moving to fiddle with something on his desk, "if you like it then it doesn't matter if anyone else likes it."

He tried not to stare at her face but failed miserably. 

He had told her yesterday afternoon that he could meet her at her house if she'd just tell him where the damned place was. She only shook her head and ran off. She would always get so touchy about that place. He figured it was just one of her many quirks.

Sure enough he woke the next morning to some tapping on his window. He had figured it was a bird or something; Tate hated birds. Then when he'd slid up the glass he'd found the round face of his small Asian teen staring in at him, her knapsack on her back and her feet bare. He glanced at the clock then, 2:37 am.

"But I care if you like it," Angela said moving to sit on his bed, "you're my friend."

Angela climbed on to the mattress and then sat down cross-legged with her back against the wall. Tate could see up her skirt from his position at the desk. She was wearing shorts under it. He snorted and grinned at how childish she could be even though she was already fifteen and starting high school.

"Well I guess I approve if it means that much to you."

She gave a  _hmm_  of satisfaction. Her eyes were closed and her head was leaned against the wood of the wall. She was tired Tate realized. He walked to her, careful not to wake her, she only had a couple hours before she'd have to get back home to catch her bus at 7:00 am.

There was something that had kept him distracted the whole time she was there. Two somethings actually. The whole while she and he had spoken, three hours and five minutes exactly, he couldn't keep up. She had a shiner, not a very bad one it was mostly from what was hiding beneath the bandage that sat stark and white on the tanned skin of her left cheek.

"Who did this to you?" he whispered ghosting his fingers over the bandage but his caution was moot.

"I did," Angela said her eyes snapping open though they betrayed no surprise at Tate's proximity.

"I was trying to fix a bike," she explained Tate had not moved, his fingers still against her cheek, "a little boy had broken his chain and well I pulled too hard and gripped too soft and ended up with a shiner."

That would explain the shiner, but it didn't because the shiner wasn't from a hit to her face. It was from whatever was hiding beneath the bandage. Tate's eyebrows collided in the middle of his forehead. She was lying to him. Why would she lie to him?

It was because she knew he was dangerous, or maybe she just wanted to wear a bandage because it made her look cool. Maybe she did hit herself in the face and cut herself with her own nail. So many explanations that could all make sense but Tate could shake the feeling that she was lying to him.

"Popo was real upset when I got back home," she said, she often spoke of her grandmother, "said that I was a clumsy little thing, bènzhuō de xiǎo dōngxi. That's what she said."

Angela's grandmother was from China, she had told Tate. She only spoke a broken English and often cursed in Chinese.

 _She's a bitter old woman_ , Angela had told Tate,  _all her dreams came true and she still became old and bitter_.

That was the first time Angela had ever shown Tate the slightest bit of malice towards anyone. If he was completely honest, he liked it. He liked it when she was a little bit mean, when she was just a little bit more like him.

"You should get some rest," Angela said with a yawn, "you've got school too."

Tate didn't reply he hadn't told her about what happened last year. It wasn't fair to say that he ashamed. The subject of his schooling had never come up and he had never felt the need to tell her. Angela closed her eyes and her breath slowed. Not sure what to do about the shiner, and the bandage Tate followed her instruction. He moved to lay on the bed. He curled up his legs so he could fit in the space left on the twin sized bed. Angela had uncrossed her legs so that he could rest his head on them comfortably.

"Was it really a bike?" Tate asked his blond head against Angela's soft thigh, "Was it really, Angela?"

He couldn't help but ask. He wanted to know. Angela rested her warm soft hands against his face and left them there.

"Yes," Angela said sounding much older than she actually was; she did that sometimes.

Tate fell asleep to the smell of honey and polishing oil.

"Tate!" Constance's shrill voice broke his slumber.

Tate's eyes snapped open at the sound of his mother's heels clacking towards him door. He was alone. He looked around the room but the girl had disappeared but then he noticed something on his desk.

A juice box.

He didn't know he was smiling until Constance came into the room.

" _What_  are you smiling at?" she huffed, the woman seemed to be out of breath and in a hurry.

Her hair was unkempt, a rare occurrence in the Langdon household. She was still in her flowery robe but her heels were already on.

"Get up," she said looking around in disgust at Tate's messy room.

"Why?" Tate said not moving from his place on the bed.

He could still smell the honey and oil.

"I  _said_  get up, boy," Constance said in her strict southern twang, "you're going to school."

"Westfield kicked me out last year," Tate said flopping back down onto his bed, "they told me not to come back."

It turned out that Tate was actually quite intelligent. He read a lot and it turned out that they let him skip sixth grade and that suited him just fine but then high school came and everything changed.

He was a lanky, reed-thin when he arrived last year. A blond baby-faced piece of fresh meat. He had grown since then, in actuality puberty had hit him early at the end of his 14th year but it had come too late nonetheless. Tate had started to skip all his classes to avoid being jumped. He spent all of his time in the library reading books about random things that caught his interest like birds and H.P. Lovecraft.

Then one day he got tired of all the shit and when a big guy, with big fists and a big acne problem came at him, Tate pulled out a knife. And that was the end of that. The school called his mother and told her to pick him up. The knife incident coupled with the amount of absences resulted in a screaming match between the principal and Constance Langdon and concluded with the blonde woman rushing out of the office mumbling something about the inadequacy of public establishments to educate the American youth.

And that had been that. End of story.

" _Get_  UP! I said," Constance shouted startling Tate.

"Apparently the principal from last year died of a stroke, may the old bitter bitch rest in peace," Constance said rushing to his drawers pulling out random articles of clothing, "and the new little shit they've got likes my ass so you're going back today."

Tate didn't really have anything to say. He just sat and watched Constance bustle around the room, making sure she didn't knock over the juice box, which already had the straw inserted in it.

"Well what are you waiting for?" Constance said once she noticed Tate's stagnancy.

It took him a bit to respond but he came back with a biting comment.

"I'm waiting for my mother to get her unkempt ass out of my room so I can get changed," Tate bit out.

A look of hurt crossed Constance's face. Despite all her faults and all her mistakes, Constance truly did love her children even if she hurt them from time to time. They hurt her too, especially Tate.

"My my," Constance said patting her hair and robe, her mask back in place, "you're right, dear. I suppose I'll go get ready as well."

"Don't bother," Tate said stopping his mother in her tracks, "I can get there on my own."

Constance looked like she wanted to protest. She wanted to take him to school, to coddle the boy, to take care of her son but she knew better. Tate had never liked her much, loved her? She could delude herself that somewhere deep down he did. She was just happy he was going to school.

"Of course you can," Constance said reaching out to touch his cheek but he pulled back, "you're a smart boy, you can do anything you set your mind to."

She waited for him to say something, anything but Tate wouldn't give her the satisfaction. She could never understand why he hated her so. Her lovely beautiful boy hated her. And that killed her inside.

When Constance finally left, Tate rose from the bed towards his desk where the juice box sat waiting for him. He picked it up inspecting it, strawberry kiwi, her tastes had changed.

 


	6. Everything is Broken

It was three weeks later when Tate finally decided that it was time to visit Angela's school. Everyday he saw her it seemed she was nursing some new wound. For the most part they seemed small and insignificant a few scratches here and there but Tate noticed things. Things like the way Angela would wince if she stretched her torso too far. Or the way she'd make a face when he boxed her shoulder playfully. It was in every move she made; it was in written into her very essence. Someone was hurting her and Tate wouldn't stand it anymore.

1:47 pm was when he spotted her. She had a slight limp and on her right leg was another white bandage. Tate frowned at that, a deep disturbing frown that was too dark for someone so young.

He waited until she limped her way through double doors then checked to make sure the hallways were clear before following her. He was quiet as he opened the doors. Angela didn't even turn around when he stepped into the room.

The room was large with a very high ceiling. The walls were plain and smooth with very few obstructions; they were made for bouncing sound. In the middle of the large room sat a small brown up right piano at which Anglea had seated herself.

"How'd you get past security?"

"Wha-huh?" Tate gasped.

He thought he'd been so sly. For a moment Tate just stood wide-eyed at her back then came quickly back to his senses.

"Fool-hardy luck and a immense charm," was his dazed response.

That got Angela to chuckle; was a surprisingly deep dark sound. Tate imagined if he could taste that sound it would be like sip of his mother's red wine, the one she kept locked in a cabinet that Tate could pick the lock to since he was 8.

"Do you want to hear a song?" Angela said so calm it was eerie.

Tate could only nod but then he realized she couldn't see him nod. He felt silly his pale cheeks flushing pink. So he shuffled grudgingly to the small girl at the piano who had made him feel so stupid with just a few phrases.

"Where can I sit?" Tate asked.

"Hmmm," Angela hummed thoughtfully, "you can sit on the ground I suppose."

"The ground!" Tate said like a spoilt child.

He had expected a place besides her on the piano bench.

"Of course," she said simply, "you can't sit besides me; I need the room to play."

Tate made a face of discontent. He had walked all the way from Westfield, dodged about five security guards jumped a fence and scaled a wall to see her and she wanted him to sit on the floor. He moved to sit against the bench so he could be close to her but she stopped him.

"No not there," she said, "against the piano."

Tate would have been upset but then he realized something was wrong. Angela had her eyes glued to the keys of the piano. He had done so much to visit her and she hadn't even said a proper "hullo". Something  _had_  to be wrong but instead of asking what it was Tate obeyed her command without any further comment.

When the two were finally in their proper positions, the song could begin. It was a song that Angela had become obsessed with. It was a song that haunted both her sleeping and waking mind. The notes were carved on the pink fleshy insides of her eyelids. Every sound, every beat even her own breathing seemed to fall into sync with that song.

Tate pressed the back of his skull into the wood of the instrument trying his very best to hear what it was trying to tell him. He was sure if he could disentangle all those chords or interpret those note then they would tell him where she really got that shiner. They would tell him who gave her that cut on her cheek and that limp. That song would tell him who had to pay.

The song was soft and sad like the whisper of a blonde woman with red lips and a dress that would catch fire in the light. It was deep and warm like the bright red hair of a woman in black who used to bring Tate sweets and smile when he said his thanks. Then it was violent like the screams of a child torn apart then sown back together only to find it had naught the heart of a boy but of swine. Angela's fingers hit the keys down and down like a knife into the back of a young sweet nurse named Maria, then there were hiccups like splashes of a drowning woman too slow and scared to survive.

It was a song that Tate had never heard before but he could have sworn it had been written on his heart since as long as he could remember. It had been his lullaby and as it went on and he began to drift off until

_**APOWIEHAPOIGN;LKN;IJ:KLVJZIOWEHPIU BHPGZ;KLEGJ!** _

Angela slammed her fits down onto the keys as if to punish them for being wrong.  _Everything_  was wrong.

"It's not right," Angela screamed as loud as her little voice would allow, "it's all wrong, all wrong."

Tate's ears were ringing and his head was spinning but he was by her side immediately. She sobbed and her little body shook so violently Tate was sure she would break. He didn't understand. The song hadn't told him her secrets. It had only given him memories of a past that was obscured and strange to him.

"Shhh," Tate said whispered desperate to calm her, "it's okay, everybody is wrong, everything is wrong."

He tried to gather her in his arm but she wouldn't let him. She raged against him, scratching at his skin and putting her fists to whatever flesh they could find. Her elbows were smudges in the air banging against the keys and wood of the stand up piano.

"Don't touch me," she screamed, "don't  ** _touch_**  me."

"Shhhh," Tate said cooing now the sound of it hoarse and shaking, "it's me. I'm here. I'm here."

At the sound of his reassurance she calmed more from exhaustion than acceptance. She breathed in heavy sobs and gasped for air. Her limbs no longer flailed and her though her chest was heaving she didn't scream. She let herself be held. Her head pressed against Tate's sternum.

"It's all wrong, Tate," Angela muttered delirious into his chest, "I keep trying to get it down but nothing works, it won't leave me alone."

The sound of her ranting scared Tate. Angela was sweet and calm. She was cool breeze and twinkle eyes not smudging elbows and violent phalanges. She was all wrong. She wasn't Angela but he held on nonetheless. He cooed at her and stroked her hair. She looked like Angela and smelled like her too. She was just a little lost.

"Everything is wrong, Ang, everything is broken," he said trying his best to comfort her, "it's just the way of the world."

This seemed to still her. Her sobbing ceased and only sniffles remained. Her breathing calmed save for a few hitches here and there. Then she spoke her voice calm and cool.

"I can hear your heart Tate," she mumbled into his damp Nirvana t-shirt, "it's talkin' to me."

"What does it say?" Tate replied closing his eyes at the sound of her voice.

It was Angela again.

"It says," she said her voice getting soft; she couldn't bring herself to say what she heard, "I'm tired, I'm very very tired."

"It shouldn't be telling my secrets like that," Tate mumbled his voice growing soft and small.

"It can't help it Tate," Angela said, "internal organs don't lie, they can't."

He knew what she was saying. She was saying sorry, because he knew that she knew that he knew she had lied to him. She had been lying about the bike incident. She had been lying about everything. What a tedious web they had woven.

 


	7. October

Tate hadn't left her until dark. They sat together on an old dilapidated wall that curved to nowhere only about 30 or 40 feet and seemed to not serve any purpose other than to give two kids a place to sit. Tate and Angela sat there in silence until she couldn't see her shiny black shoes in the pitch-black dark. When it was time to go Tate held her hand as they stumbled in the dark back to the streetlight of the main road that would lead them home.

Angela was so close that she could hear his breath go steady from his body then back in. The smaller girl was already huffing just trying to keep up with his pace. She then remembered that Tate had mentioned that he joined the track team. He had looked thinner lately. Angela had yet to go see one of his practices and she silently promised him that she would be there next time.

She tripped once and the weight of her thin limbs ended up pressed into soft fabric of his red and green-stripped sweater. She blushed at the queer feeling that turned over in her stomach when she felt the hard muscle of his back and shoulders through the fabric. When he felt her fall he looked back at her but did not smile. He barely even acknowledged her but he did pull her closer, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her shoulder.

They were so close but she felt a dissonance beginning to yawn between them. A beast was being fed by her unwillingness to be honest and his unwillingness to be forgiving, its weight and girth pressing down between then to tear them apart.

She was glad when they stepped out of the dark into the dull orange light of the street lamps. He left her after a moment of hesitation without a goodbye.

Angela realized later that it had been a miracle that she hadn't got jumped on her way back home but at the time she was too lost in a haze.

A song was playing in her mind.

When she got home Angela went straight to her room. She wasn't surprised to find that nobody noticed her absence. She took off her shoes leaving her white socks on and curled up under the covers but her eyes didn't close.

A song was playing in her mind and it told her everything.

The past, dead babies, dead maids and dead everything, were whispering in her ear. They told her about misery, about herself, about Tate. And it told her the future.

It told her how she would die.

October

"So what instruments do you not play?" Tate said sitting on the floor in the middle of Angela's room.

It wasn't the first time he had been to her house. After what happened in the music room he had managed to convince her to let him come around her house. She of course had a strict schedule as to when he could come. He always pushed the limit. Sometimes he'd come too early or too late. He had never seen Angela so distressed so he stopped that. He played by the rules for her sake.

The room was a mess even more so than Tate's room but it was always that way. Tate found it sort of comforting. There was energy in her mess, a vitality that his own world lacked. All he wanted was to swallow that energy whole and let it sit at the center chest and set his insides on fire but he wouldn't do that. He could never to that to Angela of all people.

Tate sat in the middle of her chaos a look of contentment on his face. It felt like Angela there and in the air he could smell the faintest scent of honey and polishing oil. It was like sitting at the center of the world.

"There are tons of stuff I haven't learned yet," Angela said from her closet where she was rummaging around for something or other, "I'm sure there are even musical instruments out there that I haven't even heard of."

"I can't imagine that's true," Tate said using that tone that could have been sincere or sarcastic; no one knew.

It was that very same tone that he got him a bloody nose just last Wednesday. Some kid at the mall called Angela chink and Tate had never been good at holding his tongue. The two of them had spent fifteen minutes in the women's restroom trying to stop the bleeding offending every woman who happened to walk in.

"But one day I will hear about them," Angela said continuing to sift through all the junk in her closet, "And I'll find them and learn all about them and play them."

"You will," Tate agreed picking up a book from her desk, which seemed to be the only orderly thing in the whole room besides her bed.

And he truly believed in her. Tate didn't have many things to believe in. His father was gone and religion was a hoax. God had forsaken him and his mother was a cocksucker. So all that was left to have faith in was a little American Chinese girl who collected bruises and shiners like a bible collects dust. Maybe that was his downfall. Tate had too much faith and only one person to put it. Perhaps it was her downfall as well.

It had been nearly two months since her break down in the music room and neither had made much of an effort to discuss it. Angela was too confused and embarrassed by her outburst and Tate was just plain terrified by it. So they avoided the subject like adults.

"That's what I want to do Tate," Angela said halting her progress and turning to look at him, "I want to make music and play it on a big stage, there doesn't need to be an audience. I'd be happy if it was just you."

"I'd like that," he said only taking a short moment to look up from the book and smile.

When he turned back to his book Angela frowned. Ever since the break down Tate had grown clingy but distant. He skipped classes and he had barely even stepped into the library for more than a few minutes. Instead he spent hours listening to her play in the music room at her school. He had even made friends with the security guards.

But despite all the time they spent together Angela felt lonely. Beneath all his smiles and sunny comments there was bitterness. Angela couldn't shake the feeling that he was punishing her. She was lying to him. She had made that perfectly clear. To be fair it wasn't exactly lying. She wasn't telling him a lie but she wasn't telling him what was going on and that was just as bad in his books. And he couldn't trust her. He loved her and needed her but he couldn't trust her.

"How'd you get the wind chimes and stuff all the way up there?" Tate asked quietly as he craned his neck so that he could look up at the high ceiling.

Sure enough forty, maybe fifty mobiles hung from the ceiling dangling down swinging in the light breeze coming from an open sky window. They were all different shapes and sizes. One was made of what looked like metal shavings painted blues and shades of orange all tied to light brown string in a pattern that created the shape of fish, whales and other sea creatures. There was one made out of dead flowers and another made of papier-mâché

Angela didn't catch his question because she was too busy looking but Tate waited and looked. Among the chaos of her room he spotted some of the strangest things. There was a collection of tree nuts, walnuts, pine cones and other little trinkets arranged from shade of brown darkest to lightest on her dresser. On the window sill just about the head of her bed sat an impressive collection of bird's eggs. There were speckled ones in brown, blue and camel. They came in bright colors and dull ones. For the majority of them he could name the bird they came from. He couldn't imagine how she even came across some of them. They didn't even nest in the Western hemisphere.

"Aha!" Angela cried, "I found it."

Tate stood up from the desk he had been leaning on. He would forgive her eventually of course. He found that he could forgive Angela for just about anything but she'd have to come clean first.

Tate walked through her room, which was larger than his own. The ceiling was high sloping diagonally with the slant of the roof of her house.

"Whatcha got there," Tate inquired trying to be patient but she had been digging in that hole for nearly twenty minutes.

All the while, ignoring him. He wanted to see what the fuss was about.

"It's my very first," Angela said holding the thing out to him, "this is Stella."

It was a kazoo.

"That's a kazoo."

"Well yea," Angela said obviously disappointed with his lack of enthusiasm, "but not just any kazoo. This was my very first kazoo."

"You have more," Tate said both horrified and amazed at the idea.

Tate hated kazoos.

"Of course I have more," Angela said, "I have a ton, I also have a violin that I nicked from school, a French horn I found in someone's trash and a whole bunch of other stuff. I thought you realized that."

Of course he had. Tate noticed everything about her. From the way her fingers twitched just before she began to play her viola to the queer sound she mad as she inhaled sharply just before she laughed.

When he first entered the room he instantly began to catalog everything his greedy little eyes could see. He took notes in his mind about the things she already had and the things she'd need. Tate had become quite the musical enthusiast since meeting Angela. Most of the books he borrowed from the library were on musical instruments about their care, variety and accessories. He planned out birthday gifts, Christmases etc all in those few moments. Without even realizing it he had already planned out a whole life with her in it.

Tate smiled brightly as Angela showed him her fish tank, which had no fish in it but rather was filled with her collection of Coca-Cola memorabilia. After that she could barely contain her excitement at sharing her first piano instructional book with him. She was practically raving as she pointed out her favorite songs humming the tune of each one for him.

"You're so funny, Ang," Tate said shaking his head and dropping his eyes to the wood floor, "you just don't know how to be normal. It never even crossed your mind."

From his lips that sounded like an accusation. Angela tried to smile back but the left corner of her mouth just wouldn't cooperate. It drooped ever so slightly below its counterpart on the right side of her face creating a happy grimace to mar her face.

"Nope," she whispered hoping to catch his eyes or see the expression on his face but no such luck.

She meant to say more add some clever quip or some kind of humorous anecdote. She meant to at least scream at him to stop fucking ignoring her but the air got stuck in her throat. She knew he was angry. She didn't want to lie. Angela wanted to tell him everything but something curling and unfurling in her stomach kept her from it. It was like pain and fear and exact weight of steel toe boot.

"You can take that," Angela said referring to the book still in hand, "I knew you'd like it so I put it out where you could see it."

That got his attention. He looked up at her through his blond hair the curls of it curving just over his eyebrows almost into his eyes. His stare made her uneasy but she smiled regardless this time both corners of her mouth rising in tandem.

His glare softened at the sight of her smile. Tate knew he'd have to forgive her eventually. He was sure he'd die if he didn't but she was lying. Lying was one of the worst things a person could do in Tate's book but being Angela was also the best. One of those things would have to win out eventually but until it did Tate and Angela were stuck in limbo.

"Thanks," he said another dull smile flashing across his face but settling immediately.

He went back to his book and left Angela standing with her box of Kazoos in hand. Her frame looked infinitely lonely against the lively scenery of the chaos of her room. Her bones looked brittle from beneath her tanned skin like they would break under the weight of her sadness.

Tate kept his eyes on the book. He turned a page never once glancing up at Angela to see her sadness. His skin felt cold and he couldn't make sense of any of the words but he couldn't forgive her just yet.

"Look at me," Angela said softly at first but Tate caught it, "please will you just-"

Her tongue halted when his eyes met her own.

"Ang, don't," he said gently but with a warning.

He went back to reading the book but Angela wasn't having it.

"Don't tell me to stop," she said her voice growing, "you haven't looked at me since forever! Why are you doing this to me?"

She gripped her box of kazoos to her chest as if trying to draw some comfort from the pieces of plastic. They gave her nothing.

"Why? WHY?" Tate said quickly losing his cool, "Why the hell do you think? You're lying to me, Angela. To me! How I am supposed to look you in the face knowing that?"

The box of Kazoos slipped from her hand. She didn't even notice Stella falling from her fingers to ground. The impact of it created a crack all the way through the cherry red plastic.

"Then leave," Angela said not raising her voice.

Tate didn't move. He stood his ground but made no reply.

"I'm never going to tell you," she said her voice growing nearly to a scream, "so just leave because I can't ever tell you!"

Angela should never have to shout, Tate thought to himself, she should never have to raise her voice to get her way. It should just come to her.

"Why not Angela?" Tate screamed in reply, "what are you scared of?"

She sucked in a breath and made to reply but stopped suddenly when she realized the answer. She was scared of Tate. She was afraid of what he'd do.

"I can't tell you," she said, "I just can't."

There was silence after that. She didn't mean to be afraid of him. Angela loved Tate but there were things that she learned. As much as Tate had watched Angela, Angela had watched Tate and she had listened. He was in the Song and music had never lied to Angela before.

"This isn't fair," Tate mumbled thankfully breaking the silence, "I need you but how am I supposed to trust you now? How long are you going to make me stay angry at you?"

"I dunno," Angela said her hands moving in that anxious way that they tended to move when she wanted to hold something or someone.

She wanted Tate. She wanted to be close to him again but she couldn't tell him. Angela promised right there and then that she would never tell him.

"You're never going to tell me are you," Tate said as if reading her mind and hearing her vow, "I'm never gonna crack you."

Angela shook her head 'no'. Tate sighed when he saw her gesture. He had always been so indulgent towards the ones he loved and levi had broken. He couldn't ignore her any longer.

"Then I guess I'm defeated," he said.

There was a moment of hesitation and disbelief but Angela couldn't hold back for long. She ran headlong into him almost knocking the poor boy over. Tears nearly fell. Angela was sure that the world had stopped for her in that moment. And in that moment Angela allowed herself to believe that the song had lied. They were going to survive. They would live forever, just the two of them.

No such luck.


End file.
